Yule logging in
La Cieca wishes a festive and safe (if such a combination is possible) holiday season to all the cher public, who in turn are invited to offer each other such greetings in the comments below.
Recent Stories
Words without song
Long ago, in a galaxy far away – I mean, the era before supertitles became common in opera houses around the world – you could always tell the text-mad opera fan. He was the one who arrived early to the theater and spent the remaining minutes to curtain hunched over his libretto booklet, trying to […]
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
The art of the rhetorical question
“Faye Dunaway‘s Master Class Movie: What The Hell Happened?” [Michael Musto]
“Je suis heureux ici”
“The decades-overdue debut of Sir Simon Rattle at the Met Friday night demonstrated brilliantly just what we’ve been missing: His conducting of Pelléas et Mélisande is the musical pinnacle of the season.” [New York Post]
Author! Author!
La Cieca is simply overjoyed to announce a handy and fascinating innovation at parterre.com: The Author Archive Page. Each of your doyenne’s stable of scribes will be assigned his and/or her own unique page where every story under that byline will be easily accessible—as, for example, the many and wondrous reviews of Ercole Farnese. Look […]
The sea was angry that day, my friends
It’s a sad story, really. Debussy and Maeterlinck had what the kids would call Major Drama over who was to sing Melisande (Mary Garden vs. the person you’ve never heard of) and so Maeterlinck didn’t see Pelleas until years after Debussy had died, so he never got to be like “word!” or, I suppose, “mot!”
A pretty girl milking her cow
If I had been handed Clari’s score without being told the name of the composer, I might have thought it was a lost Rossini opera, albeit a minor one. I would have probably assigned it to the early period of Rossini’s career, because it shows more similarities with works like La pietra del paragone and […]
King for a day
La Cieca has just heard that Ferruccio Furlanetto has canceled this afternoon’s performance of Don Carlo at the Met. Giorgio Giuseppini will sing Filippo.
Don’t leave home without it
Congratulations to Opera Chic, named “Essential Opera Blogger” in the current Opera News by a panel consisting of Brian Kellow and Tristan Kraft.
Chat in the afternoon
At long last, the Met Saturday afternoon broadcasts begin again today with Don Carlo at 12:30 PM. What better way to spend a lazy winter afternoon than with Margaret, Ira, and a chat in La Casa della Cieca?
Una furtiva blog
Our Own JJ (pictured) reveals what makes him cry. [Musical America]
My Regie sense is tingling
The message of last times’s Regie quiz couldn’t be clearer: “La Cieca, schafft Neues!” Baritenor got the answer in less time than it takes to hum a Leitmotif: it was indeed Die Meistersinger, in a production by Andreas Homoki for the Komische Oper Berlin. This week’s quiz, therefore, is tougher, and La Cieca will also […]
Futurino
The updates on Brad Wilber‘s new Met Futures page are arriving almost daily now, with perhaps the most startling recent news the “removal” of Juan Diego Flórez from a projected new production of I puritani in April 2014. But there’s more to it, after the jump.
You, Midgette
Adroit, awesome, autononomous Anne Midgette nominates her Top 10 Classical and Opera Releases of 2010 over at Soundcheck, and, La Cieca thinks to herself, why should Anne have all the fun? What are your favorite opera CDs and DVDs of the year, cher public? (Here are a few reviews to jog your memory.)
Intermission feature
A faithful reader has just informed La Cieca that, two weeks ago at the Met, during an intermission of La bohème, he saw Henry Kissinger, “flanked by two bodyguards twice his height and twelve times his weight.” Which led this reader to pose to you, cher public, the following trivia question: “What makes Henry Kissinger […]
Dell’universo immemore…
Cosmologist Stephen Hawking may be the next “documentary” character to take operatic life on the stage of the Met. According to Le Devoir, director Robert Lepage, composer Osvaldo Golijov and librettist Alberto Manguel are rumored to be collaborating on an opera for the Met’s 2015-16 season based on Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.
Happy Birthday Raina Kabaivanska!
The Bulgarian diva was born December 15, 1934.
There is a God
The answers of millions of supplicants worldwide (and thousands of Met-goers citywide) have been answered. “[Peter Gelb] said there were no plans to replace Mr. Zeffirelli’s productions of La Bohème and Turandot. [New York Times]
Ma, deh! Non dirgli, improvvido…
“Le pene d’amore non uccisero la Callas” reads the rather sensational headline: “The pains of love did not kill Callas.” The actual story in La Stampa is more sober, telling of an investigative study into the causes of the diva’s vocal decline and eventual death.
A masked brawl
The blogger Crew Mantle, who is perhaps best known as that fellow who attends opera performances wearing a frilly Venetian carnival mask, complained earlier this week about something or other (who can say, really?) but more to the point he made a catty observation on the subject of La Cieca’s adored cher public (pictured), and […]
Wordy for Verdi
In honor of the re-release of Presenting Aprile Millo – Verdi Arias on EMI Classics, La Cieca is delighted to announce a new competition for parterre readers. Details are after the jump.
Wrap music
La Cieca invites the cher public to visit The Little Shop of Arias (your doyenne’s Amazon store) for all those last-minute holiday shopping needs!
Saddle sore?
La Cieca was just forwarded the following ominous announcement: “The George London Foundation Recital event that was to feature tenor Marcello Giordani and soprano Susanna Phillips at The Morgan Library & Museum on Sunday, December 12, 2010, at 4:30 PM, has been canceled. Mr. Giordani has been hospitalized with a severe case of sciatica and […]